Addressing the complexity of stakeholder management in international ecological setting: A CSR approach

Abstract

This study aims to develop insights on how firms could manage their relationships with the ecological setting, which is a major stakeholder to create value in an international entrepreneurial and environmental context. Based on the inductive constructive method, and drawing on the recent entrepreneurial CSR literature, stakeholder and internationalization theories, we suggest that managing ecological stakeholder relationship is intimately connected to the idea of creating value for stakeholders through creating ethical relationship with them. In this context, this study posits that with increasing emphasis from the society to assure firms' accountability to multiple stakeholders including the ecological stakeholders, the complexity of relational pressures is greater, when a firm operates in cross-border markets. Furthermore, such pressures are also higher in complex stakeholder relations, when a firm attempts to integrate internationalization and stakeholder theories in CSR-based value creating parameters, as a meaningful relationship with the ecological setting, as a key stakeholder in international markets. In this context, we have proposed propositions at the intersection of the aforementioned theoretical areas. Our synthesis offers novel insights on how firms could proactively manage their relationship with the ecological settings that is a core stakeholder in cross-border market to create stakeholder value.